The Anti Corruption Bureau in Chhattisgarh Saturday held raids at the homes and offices of eight state government officials across five districts, resulting in the seizure of cash and papers that reveal properties worth several hundreds of crores. The raids were carried out simultaneously early Saturday morning, senior ACB officials said.

Those who were raided include Shubh Narayan Pathak and Arvind Rahi of the Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojana, K K Chandrakar, the registrar of Ravishankar Shukla University, Hareram Sharma, a joint director of the Rajeev Gandhi Shiksha Mission, Dayamani Minz, a senior official with the Nagarik Aapoorti Nigam, Suresh Barua of the Nagar Nigam Bilaspur, Arun Sharma, CMO of Gharghoda Nagarpalika, and Anil Rahi of the Water Resource Department.

ACB officials said they faced several challenges during the raids. One officer refused to open the door to his residence for an entire hour, while another threw out Rs 40 lakh in cash from the window, only for it to be recovered by officials. By and large, senior ACB officials said that “there has been a shift away from cash and to other less conspicuous forms of corruption like property and investments, which are harder to trace”. They added that with the number of property papers and investments seized, it would take a few days to collate the exact amount of disproportionate assets discovered by the ACB.

Mukesh Gupta, ADG, Anti Corruption Bureau, told The Sunday Express, “These people that have been raided are known for blatant corruption. Given the past actions by the ACB, people are more alert in their nefarious deals, but we de lot of research and even before raiding the place, there is sufficient knowledge and evidence for disproportionate assets. Such raids will continue in the future as well.”